According to recent reports from ABC News, a new and exciting breakthrough may have been made in the way we treat patients with broken or deteriorating bones. Forteo, a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat osteoporosis, works by activating idle stem cells in bones to rebuild more bone cells faster and effectively.

“I’ve never seen a medication do this before,” said professor J. Edward Puzas of the University of Rochester School of Medicine, who was involved in the clinical trial. “It is a way to turn back the clock for fracture healing.”

Researchers are saying that the drug could be an important breakthrough in treating hard-to-heal bone fractures faster and with less pain. Preliminary results of the early research projects found that of 145 patients with unhealed broken bones who were tested, 93 percent had significant healing and pain control after just weeks on Forteo. Already impressed by the drug’s performance, the National Institutes of Health have launched their own study on Forteo only using post-menopausal women with pelvic fractures as the subject.

“We have seen patients who have been bound to wheelchairs who could walk independently because this drug helped them heal their fractures,” said Dr. Susan Bukata of the University of Rochester Medical Center in an interview with ABC news.

By some estimates, as many as 300,000 Americans a year potentially could benefit from this treatment.